Travelers might be asked to hand over their mobile phones and the passwords of their social media
accounts to see who they are communicating with and if they are
following an ideology hostile to US interests.

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Santosh Chaubey

Washington

April 5, 2017

UPDATED: April 5, 2017 12:42 IST

Donald Trump

HIGHLIGHTS

Trump administration is working on introducing extreme vetting measures.

Extreme vetting measures are considered to regulate visitors with hostile motives.

The changes are expected to apply even to the visitors from friendly countries.

The Donald Trump administration is working on to introduce extreme vetting measures for visiting foreign nationals as promised by Trump during his presidential campaign.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, that has widely echoed in the US media and has started a debate, the Trump administration is considering, among other things, to ask the travellers to hand over their mobile phones and the passwords of their social media accounts to see who they are communicating with and if they are following an ideology that is hostile to the US interests.

Earlier, in February, the US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly talked about the vetting measures during a Congressional hearing.

"We want to say for instance, what sites do you visit? And give us your passwords, so that we can see what they do on the internet", the Wall Street Journal report quoted him saying.

The extreme vetting process that the Trump administration is working, is going to be put into execution at the application level, where one would be asked to share their phone contacts so that it can be probed using the information available in the US database.

The changes are expected to apply even to the visitors from friendly countries and allies like Japan, the UK, France and Australia, the report says.

TRUMP FOR 'DEEP SCRUTINY' OF FOREIGN NATIONALS

The much talked about measure intends to take the existing vetting process to the extreme level. Even Donald Trump has referred to the extreme vetting measure time and again to convey his viewpoint on how to regulate entry of foreigners in the United States.

In fact, in an interview last year, he had said that he didn't care what people called it but, if elected, he would see to it that people from suspicious territories are subjected to 'deep scrutiny'.

Besides, an NBC news report quoted Donald Trump saying, "We're going to have a thing called 'extreme vetting.' And if people want to come in, there's going to be extreme vetting. We're going to have extreme vetting. They're going to come in and we're going to know where they came from and who they are."

After becoming the US president, he introduced his highly controversial immigration and travel ban plan targeting people from some Muslim majority countries. In defense, he tweeted that the US needed 'strong borders and extreme vetting.

The proposed move has already created a big debate in the US with civil society groups and advocacy groups raising their concerns. One of their main reasoning is what if other countries decide to do the same with the US citizens. Also, the concern is about its effectiveness. Terrorists who are plotting something against the US will try to enter the US with a clean slate to thwart these extreme vetting measures.

Moreover, the measure stands against 'right to privacy', which may even take the whole vetting issue to the courts.